I cover real estate, writing about everything from trends in the housing market to ultra high-end luxury listings to data-based cities lists. Real estate is in my blood thanks to a realtor for a mom and a property developer/landlord for a dad. I have had a front row seat for the real estate market's inflation and subsequent crash over the past decade, watching my dad carry on with underwater mortgages and my mom struggle to put home sales together. I have been both a homeowner and a renter in the New York area and can't decide which I prefer.
I am also a regular guest on the 'Forbes on Fox' show on Fox News every Saturday morning and can sometimes be found discussing the major business headlines of the week on MSNBC's 'Weekends with Alex Witt.'
Before taking on the real estate beat, I worked as an Anchor/Reporter in Forbes Video. These days I shoot videos of crazy homes.
I graduated from New York University in 2009 with a BA in Anthropology and prior to that I worked in the other end of media as a recording artist with Sony.
If you have tips, story ideas or listings to submit for consideration, email me at mbrennan@forbes.com.

Houston Tops Our List Of America's Coolest Cities

Houston is known for many things: Oil, NASA, urban sprawl and business-friendly policies. But the Texas city deserves to be known for something else: coolness.

The Bayou City may not be the first place you associate with being hip or trendy. But Houston has something many other major cities don’t: jobs. With the local economy humming through the recession, Houston enjoyed 2.6% job growth last year and nearly 50,000 Americans flocked there in response — particularly young professionals. In fact, the median age of a Houston resident is a youthful 33.

The result? Over the past decade, the dreary corporate cityscape has been quietly transforming. Stylish housing developments have popped up downtown, restaurants have taken up residence in former factories and art galleries like the Station Museumhave been inhabiting warehouses.

Combine that with a strong theater scene, world-class museums and a multicultural, zoning-free mashup of a streetscape and you have the recipe for the No. 1 spot on Forbes’ list of America’s Coolest Cities To Live.

Behind the Numbers

“Cool” is defined by Merriam-Webster’s dictionary as “very good; fashionable.” Of course what, exactly, is good and fashionable is very much in the eye of the beholder. We sought to quantify it in terms of cities, ranking the 65 largest Metropolitan Statistical Areas and Metropolitan Divisions (areas that include cities and their surrounding suburbs that are defined by the U.S. Office of Management and Budget) based on seven data points weighted evenly.

Sperling’s Best Places helped us calculate the number of entertainment options per capita in each metro area. We also ranked the cities based on other recreational opportunities, including the amount of green space, the cost and number of outdoor activities like golfing and skiing available, and the number of pro and college sports teams.

With the help of Sperling’s we tallied restaurants and bars per capita, weeding out chain establishments – Applebee’s has less sizzle than a local chef’s bistro.

We also looked at each city’s cultural composition using Sperling’s Diversity Index. It measures the likelihood of meeting another person of a different race or ethnicity. Increased diversity tends to lead to a larger assortment of interesting shops, restaurants and events.

Using the most recent data from the U.S. Census Bureau, we factored in median age, favoring places with a large young adult population.

We ranked the cities based on net migration (the number of people who relocated there in 2011) and also on unemployment rates, since a city’s offerings are only as good as the amount of people who want and can to afford to enjoy them. (No one likes to hang out in an empty bar, right?) We culled this data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics and Moody’s Analytics.

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The Austinites are going to be so angry they weren’t higher on the list. You can already see it here with their nasty comments here. I lived in Austin for several years, let me tell you a few secrets about it (actually, not secrets to those of us who have lived there.) Unlike Houston, Austin has an EXCELLENT marketing team – they’ve been very successful with promoting the positives and hiding the negatives. Also, you can’t go into Austin chat forums or talk to Austin residents and say one negative thing about their city – you will be vilified or banned. No joke. They even like to make things up. After my experiences there, I thought their motto of “Keep Austin weird” didn’t fit… “Keep Austin insular” is much more fitting. Austin: the most overrated city I’ve ever lived in. Houston: the most underrated city I’ve ever lived in.

Apple is not creating 3k new jobs in Austin. They are building a new center and moving the existing Austin work force in to the new facility. When it is all done Austin will gain less than 1k new jobs, but they will keep approx. 3k existing positions.

Austin is a great city, but so is every other Texas city on the list. I live in Houston and love it here!

Let me mythbust some stuff: - It is not 90% strip malls – we do have our share, but also have some great “non-strip mall” retail. - There are cool areas just like in Austin with locally owned shops, great bars and delicious coffee (example: The Heights – has all three types of things listed all over the place). - The traffic is bad at rush hour (like any city!), but not all the time. Sure, there are areas to avoid at any time of day (no thank you 290! I will not sit in your perma-traffic!), but again, this is on par with other big cities. - Not every home is a McMansion – those are mostly in our suburbs (like in Austin suburbs). We have a ton of diverse real estate here – bungalows, duplexes, tiny mom-and-pop owned apartments plus all the commercial stuff (big complexes, the aforementioned “McMansions”.)

My take: we’re all Texans and love where we live – let’s cool it on the “my dad can beat up your dad” city superiority!

Houston is the worst example of ugly urban sprawl, lack of zoning, horrible traffic and wretched air quality in the South. And Morgan Brennan wouldn’t know “cool” if it hit her with a truck. She thinks it can be quantified according to a formula — about the least cool thing imaginable. For those capable of recognizing cool (hint: if you watch Fox, you can’t know cool), Austin blows every city in Texas away, except maybe for San Marcus and some of the funky little towns in the Chihuahuan Desert.